Unfortunately, indeed, I _did_ go rather farther
than I intended, for so genial and so refreshing was my sleep, that the
next time after leaving Hounslow that I fully awoke was upon the sudden
pulling up of the mail (possibly at a post-office), and on inquiry I
found that we had reached Maidenhead--six or seven miles, I think, ahead
of Salthill. Here I alighted, and for the half-minute that the mail
stopped I was entreated by my friendly companion (who, from the transient
glimpse I had had of him in Piccadilly, seemed to me to be a gentleman's
butler, or person of that rank) to go to bed without delay. This I
promised, though with no intention of doing so; and in fact I immediately
set forward, or rather backward, on foot. It must then have been nearly
midnight, but so slowly did I creep along that I heard a clock in a
cottage strike four before I turned down the lane from Slough to Eton.
The air and the sleep had both refreshed me; but I was weary
nevertheless. I remember a thought (obvious enough, and which has been
prettily expressed by a Roman poet) which gave me some consolation at
that moment under my poverty. There had been some time before a murder
committed on or near Hounslow Heath. I think I cannot be mistaken when I
say that the name of the murdered person was _Steele_, and that he was
the owner of a lavender plantation in that neighbourhood.
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